"Treating him," she said.
"Royally," I added with an inane grin.
Bobbie shrugged and blew a bubble in my face. "Lemme show you something, Lassiter."
She shoved her clipboard under my face, a stack of papers attached. At the top, a male symbol was jabbing the female symbol with his arrow. "Our latest client survey," she said. "Ninety-one percent of the men and eighty-three percent of the women rate our service as very good or exceptional."
I riffled through a bunch of completed questionnaires. "Only a couple written in crayon," I said with admiration.
"Always the smartass. We're a solid business. Satisfaction guaranteed. Just look at these."
She was right. There were numerical listings and eloquent testimonials to Compu-Mate. "Hot and wet," wrote Muff Diver. "Lotsa, lotsa men," gushed Helen Bed. "Need more fetishists," complained Cruel Mistress. Another one caught my eye. "Bitches wouldn't know a real man if they blew one." Signed, Tom Cat. Pithy, you had to give him that.
"So what can I do you for?" Bobbie asked, still looking at Pam.
I drew a subpoena out of my suit coat. "I want to see copies of everything you turned over to Detective Rodriguez. Printouts, membership lists. Everything."
"I thought he worked for you."
"Yeah, I thought so, too."
She shrugged again and waved us back. Her thongs flip-flopped along the tile as she escorted us to a file cabinet next to the computer. She looked at my pants and said, "Is it raining outside, Lassiter, or you get excited on the way over here?"
I ignored her, and after a moment she found the right file and handed me a batch of papers. I didn't know what I was looking for, but it wouldn't take long to find.
On the left-hand side of the page was the handle. On the right was the real name and address.
"Those are in chronological order by date of membership," Bobbie said. "The computer can alphabetize them, if you want."
"No need." I thumbed through half a dozen pages and found the right one:
DAWN DELIGHT DARCY NOLAN 2340 SW 103 ST. LOUNGE LIZARD P. FREIDIN 1865 BRICKELL AVE HONEY POT LOUISE MAROUN 14000 SW 70 AVE. ORAL ROBERT BOB MARKO 635 MICHIGAN AVE. ROCK HARD S. GROSSMAN 120 SAPODILLA DR. BANANA MAN D. RUSSO 3540 SALEM BLVD. FORTY-TWO DEE DEE ANN REYNOLDS 2318 NE 168 TER. HORNY TOAD P. FLANIGAN 1683 TAGUS AVE. BIGGUS DICKUS A. RODRIGUEZ 7560 SW 26 ST.
Boom! Just like that. The little jolt of adrenaline. Then the moment of doubt. There are fifteen pages of Rodriguezes in the Miami phone directory. Nineteen listings just for "A. Rodriguez." Not that Alejandro Rodriguez would be any of those. Detectives don't stick their home addresses in the book. Too many guys short on humanity and long on memory for that. And I didn't know his home address. But easy enough to find out. Just drive by the Twenty-sixth Street address tonight, look for the county-owned Plymouth out front.
It would be there, I knew. All the many pieces fit together. I found the first printout I had spread in front of Charlie Riggs on the dock. On the night she was killed, Marsha Diamond computer-talked with four men.
BIGGUS DICKUS BUSH WHACKER ORAL ROBERT PASSION PRINCE
Nine names turned up on Mary Rosedahl's list.
BIGGUS DICKUS HARRY HARDWICK HORNY TOAD MUFF DIVER PASSION PRINCE ROCK HARD SLAVE BOY STUDLY DO-RIGHT TOM CAT
"Who talked to Priscilla Fox on the night she was killed?" I asked Bobbie.
"Passion Prince. I told the detective that."
"Yeah, I know. Who else?"
She shrugged again, popped a pink bubble, and slinked to the computer terminal. She punched a few buttons and waited for a blip and a bleep and then called out, "Banana Man, Tom Cat, and Biggus Dickus."
"Bingo!"
"What is it?" Pam asked.
"Only two men talked to all three women on the nights they were killed. Prince and Dickus. And we know Prince is innocent."
"So you think it's Mr. Dickus," Pamela Maxson said.
"Unless you have a better idea," I said.
CHAPTER 27
I was poling the skiff across the Key Largo flats half a mile off the marshy hammocks on a sweltering day that held no hint of a breeze. The surface glistened in the harsh light, and in the shallow water tiny crabs scurried across the bottom, searching for specks of food. Sweat poured down my bare back and stained my canvas shorts. Somewhere under a hat of green palm fronds sat Charlie Riggs, cool as a six-pack in white cotton clam diggers and an aloha shirt festooned with lavender orchids.
"Great day to be alive." Charlie chortled, nearly squirming with joy. "And thanks for the new rod. My goodness, it's a beauty!"
"Just figured it was time you looked like a fisherman."
"Now, if you'll point me in the direction of some Albula vulpes, we can get to work."
Charlie lovingly fondled his new seven-foot, five-ounce graphite rod. It was equipped with an open-face spinning reel, wrapped with two hundred fifty yards of eight-pound test line. He was going to drop some un-weighted shrimp in front of Mister Bonefish, if I could find him. At your service, Jake Lassiter, old salt-fishing guide. I'd been poling and watching for an hour and had nothing to show for it except five pounds of lost water weight. Where were those little monsters with the recessed chins?
Charlie practiced a few casts, easily handling the light rod, holding the tip above his head at one o'clock, then flicking the wrist and releasing the line at eleven o'clock, adjusting the length of the cast by thumb pressure on the reel spool. After a few tries he could drop the bait on a lily pad at forty yards.
"So, Jake, you bring me out here to fish or talk?"
"Both, of course."
"Well, the fish ain't biting half as much as the skeeters, so let's get to it."
On the way down to Key Largo on Useless 1, I had told Charlie about Biggus Dickus and Lieutenant Fox. I showed him the officer's log I had purloined from the closet. He read it silently, committing the important parts to memory. Mostly there were the mundane accountings of infantry in the field. Weather reports, platoon rosters, notes from Command, coordinates of objectives, summaries of missions, arcane military slang and abbreviations, casualty rolls, to-do lists. Occasionally a personal item suffused with unstated meaning: Write Barker's mother.
I turned first to the entry labeled 09 JAN '68. The ink had run and faded. I imagined Fox huddled in the elephant grass in a monsoon, trying to write under the shield of his poncho. Or was it sweat dripping from his forehead as he sought the words? Or tears?
0700-Men tired, stoned. C-rations low.
1100-Rain, rain, go away, Charley back another day.
Open paddies. Men slow, surly.
1330-VC ambush on dike. Gallardi, Boyer, dogwood 6.
Rosen, Williams, Colgan, Miciak, dogwood 8.
1800-Dak Sut. Firefight. 3 VC greased. Zippo approx.
20 hooches. Phuong MIA. Lt. E. Ferguson. Rest in peace.
May the Lord have mercy.
That was it. Ass-backward from the way he tells the story now, when he tells it at all. The incident on the dike happened before they got to Dak Sut. Evan Ferguson was killed in the village, not on the dike. Nick penned a small prayer over his loss. So why the deception? I thumbed through the log. An entry from January 12, three days later. Filed report re Dak Sut. No queries from Command. What should they have asked? I wondered. Maybe Marsha Diamond's questions. She couldn't ask them. But I could.
I drove the pole into the soft sand and tied us fast. I sat on the platform covering the ninety-horsepower Mercury and grabbed a Grolsch from the cooler.